


We Too Shall Rest

by DemonsDaughter



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Afterlife, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8658310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonsDaughter/pseuds/DemonsDaughter
Summary: Knockout mourns the loss of Breakdown and finds himself on the edge of grief-driven insanity, saved only by a brief encounter held in the liminal space between life and death.





	

-Empty-

Time had seemed to drag on more slowly after the news, yet as far as Knockout could tell the Nemesis was working as usual. The drones all reported to their stations, came into the med bay for their tune-ups, and went about their mundane tasks aboard the starship. Megatron and Starscream continued to bicker and maul each other as they always had while Soundwave silently regarded them in the background. His face mask was still unreadable, a shiny blank screen of darkness. 

Things were as they always had been, minus one.

Knockout arranged all of his medical tools after the last drone had been wheeled into a recovery room, the medic taking a little more time with each of his patients than he normally would have. He even brought one of the drones who had had both his knees shot out by Arcee an extra blanket when he saw him shivering. 

“Thank you, Sir,” the drone said, clutching the blanket in his three-clawed hands before tucking himself in. 

“You’re welcome,” Knockout murmured, closing the door to the small recovery room behind him. 

He walked to the sink to sanitize all of his laser scalpels, tweezers, and line clamps, his pearl white hands so used to every piece of equipment as energon drained from it into the sink. It was second nature to him to be the link between life and death, the mech smiling when he told himself he had saved quite a few lives that day. Twelve, if one was counting. 

Knockout had worked harder than usual but felt unsettled, the night still young. So he took it upon himself to burn off some energy driving. He needed to get his mind focused on something else now that all of his patients were taken care of. The sports model snuck out of the ship when he got a chance and took to the empty Nevada roads, speeding with abandon as if he could outrun the thoughts that plagued him.

-Alone-

His optics welled up even in his alt mode, his faceplate and helm hidden within the frame of an Aston Martin. He wanted things to be the way they had been before, the mech pushing himself to go even faster along the pavement. After a while he felt like he was flying, lifting off the ground like a Seeker would before taking to the air. 

Knockout wished he could fly away from there, back to Cybertron where things had made sense, where things had been better.

He didn’t notice there were headlights coming towards him, a human driving his BMW along the road absorbed in his own thoughts just as much as the Cybertronian was. Knockout and the other driver didn’t notice one another until the last possible moment, each drifting over the painted lines of the dark roadway. The two sports cars swerved, the screech of tires and the panic of nearly losing control a shared experience. 

Knockout regained control and continued on his way, checking his side mirror to make sure the human had made it. For some reason he cared if he did. The BMW had spun twice on the road, its tires leaving hot black marks like scars across the smooth road, but its owner had reigned it in like a panicked horse and commanded control. The red mech watched the other vehicle fade into the distance and let the close encounter pass him by.

Eventually Knockout slowed down, unable and uninterested in keeping up his speeding forever. He had to confront the miseries that followed him, the insecurities biting at his heels like hounds chasing after a fox. Only this fox wasn’t about to run anymore, instead it had found a defensive position and started to bite and snarl as it was surrounded.

-Cornered-

Knockout transformed and took off running into the desert, his optics locked on a rock outcropping he was very familiar with. They had been in the same area of Nevada for some time now hunting Autobots. It had given the soldiers a chance to become knowledgeable about their location and its landmarks. 

The Aston Martin ran gracefully for a mech, his frame built for speed even in his Cybertronian form. Like a greyhound he crossed the dusty ground, for once not thinking about the grit and dirt that was surely collecting between his armor seams and scuffing his paint. 

Fuck the polish. Paint and appearances only mattered so much when the most important thing in his life was gone, stolen from him far too soon. There had been so many plans dreamed up, laughed about, and abandoned in unison. They had been so excited to spend the rest of their lives together. 

They had been alive.

Knockout felt his legs turn numb as washer fluid stung his optics and his venting caught in his throat. He wheezed and coughed, unable to keep running as he cried. The mech grunted as he collapsed at the edge of the cliff, his blurry optics gazing out across the small canyon. Dragging himself to the flat rock where he had sat before with a blue truck at his side, the mech lay there and stared up into the sky. 

One of those stars was him. He could feel it. Knockout choked on a sob when he spotted said star, watching the blue light it emitted from his sorry vantage point on Earth. 

“You won’t believe what came in today, Breakdown. Those drones are troopers to handle the damage they do with such grace. You were right about them! They actually have personalities,” Knockout said, not even bothering to wipe away the tears rolling down his cheeks. “I also had a near collision on the highway just now with a human. Could you imagine that? Me, crashing into a /human?/ And it was all because I was thinking about us, you big oaf.”

Knockout sat up and hugged his knees to his chest, finally breaking apart into gasping sobs. 

-Agonized-

Every kind of pain is different. Knockout knew how much a broken rib strut hurt or a ruptured main vent, how it felt to be pierced with a blade or cut with a sword. All those pains were physical and made one bleed, but mental hurts were so much different. They were hard to drive back, to compartmentalize, to understand. Knockout had thought he was immune to that sort of suffering, just like how a bot could become immune to a disease with a set of booster antivirus shots.

Breakdown had been that medicine to him, but he had only started his course of treatment before it was stolen and turned Knockout into an invalid once more. Breakdown had been the one person who had begun healing his narcissism and his guarded personality. Breakdown had charged through it with no fear and cured Knockout of ailments he didn’t even realize he had been afflicted with. 

Yet he was dead now, taken far before his time. 

Knockout screamed, the sound as visceral and tortured as could be. The sports model hurled a rock off the edge the cliff, hearing it faintly clacking as it tumbled down into the dry riverbed below. The mech wanted to follow, his pedes carrying him to the edge before he could think twice. And there he stood, feeling the warm summer breeze gently ghost across his wet cheeks as it brushed past. 

“I want to be with you,” Knockout whispered, staring up at the endless expanse of sky. “You promised we were in this together, but where are you now, Breakdown? You left me all alone. You broke your promise.”

-Betrayed-

Knockout actually waited for an answer, but of course there would never be one. After standing all alone on the edge of the cliff where he and his partner had once watched the stars together and talked about their future lives, Knockout finally turned away from the cliff and walked sullenly back to the road. He wanted to end it and follow his lover into whatever realm death offered them. The Well as their heaven or the Pit as their hell, Knockout wanted to be there with Breakdown. Yet he knew that wasn’t an option yet. 

“You’d be so angry with me if I left all the drones to fend for themselves in that med bay. No one else can do my job like me! I’m amazing at it and they’d all be hopelessly lost without me to put them back together again,” Knockout said, talking to a blue truck that wasn’t there. “But when the war is over someday, I’m going to come find you. Then you won’t be alone out there and neither will I.”

Knockout knew how Breakdown could get scared and paranoid, so he hoped that Primus was taking good care of him.

Knockout transformed once he reached the road and went speeding back to the Nemesis, trying to push away the sorrow for a little longer. He couldn’t let the drones see he was falling apart. A medic wasn’t allowed to break because no one could put them back together again. Breakdown could have, but he was gone. 

The Aston Martin slunk back into the starship and retreated to the med bay. Once inside the familiar space he checked every drone twice before stumbling into his berthroom and passing out on the berth from sheer exhaustion. He hardly slept anymore, his mind far too busy mulling over Breakdown’s passing. It tried desperately to find something to soothe Knockout’s aching spark with, offering good memories, logic, and assurances that he could find Breakdown when it was his time, but none of them were good enough to mend the gaping wound in the mech’s soul.

Knockout slid into a restless recharge, the mech tossing and turning for a good hour before he finally stilled and was allowed to sleep. 

In his dream he was shocked to find himself standing in a starry city, mechs and femmes bustling past him, moving /through/ him, as he stood in a confused state in the middle of a sidewalk. He didn’t recognize anyone, the sports model hugging his arms to his chest as he glanced around, unsure what he should do, which direction he should go in. Yet he didn’t feel like this was a nightmare, the mech simply standing and…waiting for something.

“Hey, partner!”

Out of the blurry crowd came a form Knockout knew so well, Breakdown stepping out of the masses with a smile on his face. He looked healthy and strong, both of his optics intact and bright as could be. They glowed with an citrine light from among the mech’s starry frame, his body partially transparent blue with spots of light scattered throughout. It was like someone had sprinkled flecks of gold into a pool of water and mixed them, Breakdown’s frame shimmering like a never-fading galaxy.

“Breakdown?”

“It’s me, alright! I’ve missed you so much, buddy.”

Breakdown enveloped Knockout in a massive hug, squeezing him tight. Knockout laughed, the sound one of relief as he stood on tip-toes and cupped his mate’s faceplate in his hands. Breakdown looked like he was made of oil or water, yet his frame was solid when hugged.

“Where are we?”

“We’re in the city! Everyone is heading to where Primus sends them, but I was hanging around for you.”

“So I’m dead, then?”

“Nah, you’re just getting a sneak peak of limbo here. Primus heard you and decided it was okay if you saw me. I’m doing real good, KO. My optic is fixed and I feel better than ever! But I wanna show you one more thing before you wake up.”

Knockout let Breakdown’s soul take his hand and tug him forward, the pair running through other bots who were apparently waiting for companions in the city of limbo as well. Knockout at one point realized his hand was also transparent red, flecks of the same golden light Breakdown possessed scattered throughout him as well.

“This is the street we get to walk down when you come,” Breakdown declared, slowing down to show Knockout a single road of the city, the name of the street sign their own designations. “If you look really far into the distance and that light at the end, I think we’ve got a few bitlets there,” Breakdown added, lightly nudging Knockout in the side with an elbow. 

“Can’t I go with you now? What if we walked in there together? Into the light?”

“You can’t leave all the drones in med bay! They’re my friends, Knockout!” Breakdown exclaimed, worried that his mate would choose not to wake up. “Megatron will kill them or let them suffer if you’re not there to patch them up. So…will you go back for me? To make sure they’re all okay?”

“So long as I don’t have to wait thousands of years to see you again,” Knockout said, feeling his grasp on Breakdown’s hand loosening not of its own accord. Primus obviously thought he had seen enough. “Breakdown, it’s so hard without you there!” 

“You can do it, Knockout! I can’t say how long you’ve got to wait since that’s out of my hands, but Primus will get you when the time is right. Just trust me on this one, okay?”

“I trust you. And I love you more than anything, Big Blue.”

“Love you even more, Knockout,” Breakdown rumbled, stealing a quick kiss before Knockout’s soul faded from the realm of the dead. “See you soon.”

Knockout woke with a gasp in his berth, hurling the rumpled mesh blankets off his frame as he sat bolt upright. His optics were wide, the ruby orbs checking his hands to see if they were solid metal like they had been before when he went to recharge. They were, the medic even checking his own pulse. After the two fingers on the main line of his neck confirmed that he was indeed among the living, Knockout slowly lay back down and shuttered his optics. 

Taking in a deep vent, he smiled. 

-Hope-


End file.
